Seven Dials (30 page)

‘We do - a lovely one. The Board of Governors are going to be exceedingly happy people, and exceedingly grateful. We’ve reached our target and gone more than five hundred over the top - £10,522 we made. Which means the appeal has to get only another £9,500 or so and we’ve got our new block and a bit more besides -’

‘Only!’ Letty laughed. ‘Ye gods, when I think how long it’s taken and how tough it’s been to get what we got, the mind boggles. Still, I’m delighted you did so well. Congratulations.’

‘Congratulations to
you
,’ Lee said warmly. ‘You’ve been absolutely marvellous - we’re enormously grateful and -’

‘Oh, pooh,’ Letty said rudely. ‘Listen, Lee, I want to talk about you. How are you?’

‘I’m very well,’ Lee said, on her guard at once.

‘Hmm. And the children?’

‘Oh, they’re marvellous!’ At once Lee became more animated. ‘This morning Michael said that -’

‘Dear girl, I bow to no one in my regard for your offspring, but I do not require a blow by blow account of every one of their winning little ways.’ There was no malice in Letty’s tone, but she was very definite. ‘I wanted only to know you were all well. And Harry?’

‘He seems fine.’ Lee’s voice was quite colourless.

‘Oh, Lee, for heaven’s sake, this is me, remember? Now, tell me. What’s happening?’

There was a little silence and then Lee said unwillingly, ‘Well, I’m still here.’

‘Yes, I’d noticed that.’ Lee could almost see the smile on Letty’s face at the other end of the line. ‘I’m glad.’

‘It’s only a - a temporary arrangement, though,’ Lee said. ‘I mean - the possibility is still there. Of going, that is. It’s just that -’

‘You agreed to try again?’

‘I agreed not to move out for another month,’ Lee said. ‘That’s all. The house is still there, the new one, but I let Nanny’s brother and his family borrow it until the middle of August. They live in Newquay in Cornwall, and they were able to get a good amount from letting their house there to summer visitors, so Nanny asked if -’

‘My dear, I don’t give a tuppenny damn about Nanny’s brother’s domestic arrangements. I’m just delighted to hear you two are talking.’

‘I didn’t say that -’

‘Then it’s time you did. You’ve agreed to stay with Harry for a while - well, that’s a good beginning. Now, for heaven’s sake, use the time well.’

‘Letty, please, I do wish you’d -’

‘I know, mind my own business. Well, as far as I’m concerned I’m doing just that. Harry is an ass and often behaves like a spoiled baby but he’s my nephew as well as a basically good chap and I really am very attached to him. He’s like my own son, really. Silly, isn’t it? Here I am with a great raft of nieces and nephews, and it’s Harry I feel closest to - and that gives me permission to meddle, doesn’t it? And -’

‘He did very well, didn’t he? Your other nephew, I mean -
I’ve never heard such applause -’

There was a little silence and then Letty laughed again. ‘All right, my dear, I’ll shut up. For the present. Yes, he did very well. With his sister’s help, of course -’

‘Yes.’ Lee stopped again. It really was depressing *** put it mildly, how everything seemed to come back to Harry. Harry and Katy, hateful sneering Katy - and she shook her head at herself and said as brightly as she could, ‘Darling Letty, I really must go. Stella’s giving Nanny a bad time over her morning nap and I think I’ll have to go and intervene. I’ll let you know how the appeal goes in all the other directions - the garden fête in St Paul’s Churchyard next month should bring in quite a lot and there’s to be a late summer ball too - we should get our target. Thanks again for all you did for us -’ And she cradled the phone gratefully and leaned back in her corner of the sofa.

Around her the house was still, for Stella had after all stopped crying, falling asleep with the suddenness of the very young, and there was nothing more for her to do until she went to collect Sarah from her nursery class at lunchtime, and she moved restlessly at that awareness. To have nothing to do was dreadful; she hadn’t realized just how good for her it had been to have the Benefit to keep her working. While she had been bustling about over advertisements for the brochure and begging for cheap printing and all the rest of it, she hadn’t been able to think so much about herself. But now, with the whole thing completed, the pressure of her own situation became that much greater.

She closed her eyes against that thought, but that just made it worse. All she could see was Harry’s face with its patient pleading look on it and she snapped her eyes open again and stared at the expanse of sunny window that faced her. She’d have to make her decision soon; she couldn’t go on like this. And heaven knew she was well aware of what decision she wanted to make.

She wanted to believe him, wanted to yield to his assurances that he was different now, that he had only behaved so badly and had all those sordid affairs of his because he had loved her so much and had been so miserable because she had seemed so remote - but still she felt uncertain. If only, she thought with a sharp little spurt of anger, if only I hadn’t told Letty, and she hadn’t talked to Harry. If he’d come to me of his own free will,
it would have been different. As it is, I don’t know if he really wants me, or whether he’s trying to please Letty. She matters a lot to him and always has, and he’d do a great deal to make her approve of him.

And, Lee told herself, fanning the little spark of anger to make it stronger, needing the edge of its harshness to take the edge off her deeper pain, it’s me I want him to care about, no one else. I want all of his love or none of it, that’s the truth of the matter. And I just don’t know whether he’s telling the truth when he says I’ve got it - however much he spends all Sunday courting me, fussing over me, coaxing me, and however much he may rush to phone me while he’s at Nellie’s - and again the phone rang, urgently, and she looked at it, knowing that this time it was definitely Harry. Shall I answer it, let him talk, beg and plead again? Or shall I just ignore it, tell Nanny to tell him I’m out? It was getting to be a more and more difficult decision to make.

‘Well, now,’ Katy said with great satisfaction. ‘That is what I call a right turn up for the book.’

‘Isn’t it just!’ Brin said and leaned back and stretched his arms luxuriously above his head. ‘Who’d’a’ thunk it -’ And Katy giggled and settled herself more comfortably at the foot of his bed. His breakfast tray lay on the rumpled counterpane between them and they were sharing its contents with a degree of pleasure in each other’s company that they hadn’t found since they were very young indeed and had tumbled about the hay loft at the farm above Tansy Clough, making old Wilf the cowman furious at the mess they made.

‘Let me see it again,’ she commanded and held out her hand, and he threw the piece of flimsy paper across to her and she smoothed it out on her knee and read it carefully.

‘It’s good for a first contract,’ she pronounced at last. ‘And they really seem to want you. To send a cable this long and with such a detailed offer - it’s for real, no doubt about it -’

‘It’s marvellous,’ Brin said and grinned lazily at her. ‘Bloody marvellous - just wait till I tell ’em all -’

‘Not yet,’ Katy said sharply. ‘Not quite yet - we want to make sure. Send ’em a cable yourself asking for confirmation by post - tell ’em it’s got to be sent airmail right away or you’ll have to accept another of the offers that’ve been made to you
and -’

Brin shot bolt upright, sending the tray tipping dangerously and slopping lukewarm tea onto the counterpane. ‘Are you mad? I’m going to send a cable accepting it, right away, that’s what I’m going to do -’

‘No you’re not,’ Katy said crisply. ‘Now, listen to me. I know Hollywood, ducks. I’ve been there, remember? And they’ll cut your throat for a nickel, hang you up to dry for a dime. You have to be as tough as they are to get on, play them at their own rotten game. Don’t be a bloody fool and go licking their boots, wagging your tail in gratitude! If you do that they’ll think you’re not worth a row of beans. It’s playing hard to get that matters - ask Theo -’

‘Theo? You want me to talk to
Theo
? I thought you two hated each other -’

She shrugged that away. ‘Oh, that’s not important. We have our rows, always have, right from the start. But he taught me how to handle Hollywood, and he was right. He’ll tell you the same -’ She frowned then, suddenly thoughtful. ‘Come to think of it, I suspect I recognize Theo’s hand in this already.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘How is it they’ve heard so soon? It’s Monday - the show was Saturday night. Even allowing for the time differences being in their favour and all that, how did they hear so soon what sort of reception you got and -’ She looked down at the cable again and nodded with an air of great satisfaction. ‘Of course this is Theo’s doing! He cabled ’em and tipped them off. He’s had it in for his studio for years, wanting to get out, but he’s a touch too expensive now to say the very least, and the other studios haven’t exactly been falling over themselves to pay the asking price for his contract. But if he gets someone good for one of the other big boys, they’ll owe him, and he’ll make sure he collects. Oh, he’s a cunning bastard, is Theo, but you’ve got to hand it to him - he always gets what he wants. He got me out there to the West Coast as part of a scheme to get a part he wanted for himself, and now he’s using you in the same sort of way -’

‘I didn’t know that - I mean, that it was Theo who got you to Hollywood.’

She laughed then, a rather thin little sound. ‘No, I don’t
suppose you did. I didn’t exactly make a song and dance about it. Damnit, I felt such a bloody fool, I’d have died rather than let anyone know what he did to me, but now -’ Again she shrugged. ‘Now it doesn’t matter so much.’

‘What did he do?’

She looked at him briefly and then away and looking at her face in the bright morning sunlight that was pouring in through his bedroom window to fill the small area with golden light he thought - she’s getting older. My kid sister, getting older. I suppose I am too, a bit -

‘Made love to me. Oh, not real love, you understand. But all the chat and the attention and the sexy come on - and I fell for it. Like a bloody ton of bricks.’ She looked at him briefly again and managed a grin. ‘Stupid, wasn’t it? There he was, a raging queen, and I fell head over ears for him and wanted him so badly I could - well, never mind. And it was just what the lousy bastard intended me to do. Do you wonder I get so livid when he’s around? I could kill him every time I see him - and then - oh, then I get used to seeing him again, and we go back to being more civilized. But it isn’t a thing a girl forgets that easily.’

‘You’re still in love with him,’ Brin said, startled at his own prescience, and she went suddenly scarlet.

‘If you ever say anything like that in public I’ll kill you,’ she said, and her voice was low and thin but it made him draw back a little into his pillows all the same. ‘The way I feel is no one’s goddamned business but mine - you hear me? And I’ll tell you this much - I don’t go in for falling in
love
with people. I may fall for sexiness but I don’t get soggy with it and burble on about love. That’s for the idiots, not for me. Other people drool over
me
, in case you hadn’t noticed, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. So don’t you go trotting out any of that sort of romantic garbage about me ever again or -’

He put up both hands in a gesture of mock terror. ‘All right, all right! Not another syllable do I utter, ducky. I don’t give a damn anyway. I’m more interested in my own career than I am in your love life.’

‘That’s sensible. Keep it that way.’ She seemed to calm down as fast as she had caught fire and once more wriggled comfortably into the counterpane.

There was a little pause and then Brin said, ‘So you think
Theo told these people at this studio that they ought to take me? Why should he? It sounds crazy to me –’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s the Hollywood way. And listen, ducks. Let’s be clear about this. Getting this sort of contract may sound delicious, but it’s not for real, you know – not for the big side of the business.’

He looked alarmed and opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head impatiently. ‘Oh, it’s for real in that they’ll take you out there, pay you the money, do the test and groom you and prime the old publicity machine and so forth, but whether it’s a big career – that’s another kettle of catfish. You’ll have to do something good – and then – then, of course the sky’s the limit, as long as you don’t make any mistakes.’ She looked bleak for a moment. ‘I made a mistake, agreeing to let my studio lend me to Letty. That damned
The Lady Leapt High
did me no good at all –’

‘You’ll do all right, Katy, for God’s sake!’ Brin said. ‘I mean, everyone knows you, you couldn’t be more famous and –’

‘Oh, yes I could. I’ve a long way to go yet. But I’ve learned a lot doing that rotten film. Like the importance of using every chance you get, and not getting cocky. Remember it too, Brin, if you want to make it in this lousy business. Never get cocky. I did, and I’m paying for it –’

She bent her head over the cable once more and then, slowly, her lips curved and she looked up at Brin with her eyes wide and very bright. ‘Hey, I have me a sizeable idea. I think it’s time we talked to Theo, what say you? Thank him nicely for tipping off the studio and getting them to offer for you and then suggest that maybe they’d like to go for a cuteness award.’

He stared at her, puzzled by the way she was getting less and less English the more she talked. It was as though even thinking about Hollywood imbued her with Hollywood ways and a Hollywood voice.

‘A
cuteness
award?’

She clambered off the bed and reached for his dressing-gown from the chair and threw it at him. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’m going to phone Theo. He’s leaving from Southampton tomorrow for New York – we’ve time to do a bit of parsnip buttering before he goes –’ And she went out to the living–
room and he could hear her dealing with the telephone as he struggled into the robe.

By the time he reached the sitting–room she was talking to Theo and he stood leaning against the door jamb listening, and marvelling a little. This was a side of her he had never seen, this crisp businesswoman, and it was a revelation to him; and an agreeable one.